Maryland Prison Officials Get Qualified Immunity for Prisoner "Retake" Orders

Based on a state appellate decision concerning sentence credit, prison officials decided they had released some prisoners incorrectly, so they had them arrested and reincarcerated through "retake orders." The state appeals court then said that as to some of them, it was all a mistake. They sued, alleging inter alia that they were entitled to the process used for revocation of parole rather than subject to "retake orders" without notice or hearing. Since the defendants were engaged in a good faith effort to put into effect a state appellate court decision, they were entitled to qualified immunity. See: Henderson v. Simms, 54 F.Supp.2d 499 (D.Md. 1999).

The plaintiff alleged that a parole commissioner delayed his release for several months without justification. The district court should not have dismissed on grounds of absolute immunity without a record showing whether the commissioner's actions were quasi-adjudicative (warranting immunity) or administrative (not warranting immunity). See: King v. Simpson, 189 F.3d 284 (2d Cir. 1999).

Overdetention: When Completing a Prison Sentence Just Isn't Enough

by David M. Reutter

One of the most basic functions of a prison system is releasing prisoners when their sentences expire. In April 2007, the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) admitted its system for determining sentence expiration dates was a "mess," resulting in 14 known cases of prisoners being held beyond when they should have been released. The MDOC is not the only prison system with such problems.

The length of overdetentions in the MDOC ranged from one day to four years. The most egregious case involved prisoner Rommel Jones. Since the 1980s, Jones has been in and out of prison due to theft-related charges to feed his drug addiction. In 1988 he received a 20-year prison sentence and a concurrent 10-year term.

Over the next ten years Jones was paroled three times, once for six years, but was returned to prison. His parole violations were usually for drug possession. Jones had another problem that contributed to his being unable to cope with society: He heard voices and had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

In May 2005, while incarcerated, Jones heard a voice that told him he was going home the ...

by John E. Dannenberg

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that the Secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) was qualifiedly immune from suit by prisoners who claimed that they were improperly denied participation in WDOC?s Community Custody Early Release (CCER) program.
The court held that there was no liberty interest created by the program.

Samatha Chaney and three other WDOC prisoners, who either were or would become eligible for CCER placement, sued (former) WDOC Director Joseph Lehman in U.S. District Court (W.D. Wash.) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for community release under RCW § 9.94A728(2) (2006) (establishing the CCER program) at their earliest possible release date. The district court dismissed their action with prejudice upon finding Lehman was protected by qualified immunity.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed. It observed that the CCER statute only provided that prisoners ?may? receive such release, and then only upon having WDOC approve their applications. The applications required, at a minimum, an approved residence and living arrangement. A subjective determination by WDOC that release was inconsistent with public safety concerns could also result in disapproval. However, no hearing was available for these determinations. The prisoners alleged that such disapprovals ...

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that once an arrested person has been brought before a court and ordered held, law enforcement has no duty to verify claims of mistaken identity.

Chicago police stopped Emiliano Hernandez for traffic violations on June 9, 1999. A records check revealed an arrest warrant for an Enrique Hernandez who had the exact same birth date, height, weight and eye color, which was returned to police after they entered Emiliano's driver's license number into their computer. They arrested Emiliano. Unnoticed, however, was that police had entered one wrong digit of Emiliano's driver's license into the computer.

Police brushed off Emiliano's contention that he was not the fugitive "Enrique Hernandez." Twelve hours later, Emiliano went before a judge. He pleaded guilty to all three traffic offenses he was charged with. He and his lawyer, however, never advised the court that there was a mistaken identity on the warrant. In fact, they never corrected the court when it referred to Emiliano as Enrique. The court ordered Emiliano held under $5,000 bond until a hearing on July 1, 1999.

Before that hearing, and after Emiliano was released on bond on June 24, a prosecutor discovered the ...

by David M. Reutter

Almost everyone with experience on the incarceration side of America's criminal justice system will tell you they would rather do time in prison than in a jail. The primary reason is that the overall conditions of confinement are better and less restrictive in prisons. The transient nature of a jail population makes it difficult for prisoners to improve conditions through legal challenges, as they are often released or transferred elsewhere before they can act; also, jails do not have the programs and resources available at prisons, which are designed for a longer-term sentenced population.

Most non prisoners have no concern for conditions in prisons or jails, assuming they will never be subjected to them. "I just did not care at all about what it was like. But when I went to prison, my whole view of prison and people in prison changed," said Joe Kramer, who served almost four months in Pennsylvania's Dauphin County Jail for assault and violating probation on a marijuana possession charge. "I still think about it to this day. I've had nightmares, and waking up in the middle of the night," he stated. The experience of incarceration in our nation's penal system ...

On September 5, 2005, a man who spent nine years in prison for a rape he didn?t commit settled with the Township of Clinton, Michigan, for an approximate total of $3,338,160.

Kenneth Wyniemko was convicted in 1994 of raping and robbing a Michigan woman and sentenced to 40 to 60 ...

By David Feige

Posted Monday, June 18, 2007, at 6:04 PM ET

Now that justice has prevailed in the Duke rape case, with the nice innocent boys exonerated and the prosecutor who hounded them disbarred, it is tempting to chalk the whole incident up to an unusual and terrible mistake--a zany allegation taken too seriously by a run-amok prosecutor. It would be pretty to think that Nifong's humbling suggests that our system of justice works well, harshly punishing the few rogue prosecutors who subvert the legal process. But this is simply not true.

Prosecutors almost never face public censure or disbarment for their actions. In fact, it took a perfect storm of powerful defendants, a rapt public, and demonstrable factual innocence to produce the outcome that ended Mr. Nifong's career. And because only a handful of prosecutors will ever face the sort of adversaries Nifong did or come close to the sort of scrutiny the former DA endured, the Duke fiasco will make little difference in how criminal law is practiced in courthouses around the country. Regardless of Nifong's sanction, the drama leaves prosecutorial misconduct commonplace, unseen, uncorrected, and unpunished.

As Angela Davis explains in her book Arbitrary Justice: The ...

The July 2007 issue of Prison Legal News reported Sarsfield v. City of Marlborough, $13,655,940 Award for False Massachusetts Rape Conviction and Gregory v. City of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky Settles with Wrongly Imprisoned Man for $3.9 Million. Barry Scheck was lead counsel for both plaintiffs, but while he is a co-director of the Innocence Project, he represented both of these clients in section 1983 suits in his capacity as co-founding partner of the civil rights law firm, Cochran Neufeld & Scheck.
The IP is a nonprofit and does not represent section 1983 plaintiffs in wrongful conviction lawsuits for damages. CNS does, taking on interested clients after they have been exonerated and released. Debra Cornwall, a lawyer at CNS, also represented both Eric Sarsfield and William Gregory along with Barry Scheck, and partner Nick Brustin also worked on the Gregory case.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court?s dismissal of a prisoner?s suit related to a delay in granting time served credits. The court concluded that plaintiff?s claims were not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

In 1997, Reginald Burke pleaded no contest to two Wisconsin criminal offenses and was sentenced to 5- and 2-years, respectively. The sentences were imposed consecutively to one another, and to a separate parole violation sanction. In May 1999, the court amended its order so the 1997 sentences would run concurrently.

Burke then filed various state court actions seeking credit for the 8 months he spent in jail between his July 12, 1996 arrest and March 20, 1997 sentencing. The state court rejected Burke?s various attempts to obtain time served credits.

Burke also sought the time served credits from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). After nearly two years, DOC granted Burke 8 months and 8 days of jail credit. Burke then brought an action in federal court, claiming that ?he was detained ? longer than he should have been due to the ?deliberate indifference and delay? of DOC officials in granting him the jail credit.??

The district court granted Defendants? motion to dismiss, ...